Stories of Everyday Life (2)
The hunter industry isn't all that large. More precisely, it is large—but the higher you climb, the more everyone already knows everyone else. And the relationships aren't bad, either.
They can't afford to be. In this business, you never know who might shoot up the ladder tomorrow.
It only looks different for me because I'm a mage. Get lucky and pick up five extra skills? Or bite the bullet and buy a skill book?
A perpetual B-rank can vault into A-rank overnight. And cases of someone stuck at A-rank awakening a unique ability and climbing to S-rank are common enough.
Yesterday's superior can become today's junior. That B-rank hunter you got into a fight with last time might show up this time as an S-rank.
Go through that a few times and you learn to stay on friendly terms with just about everybody.
And then there are the ones who simply die and vanish. Not the industry's self-policing, not people cast out for botching a job—promising talents who just had rotten luck and never came back.
Beyond promising talents, even full veterans slip away to the other side of the world all the time.
Naturally, the ones left standing grow close, and the industry shrinks even further. Han Yaeseo in particular was a mutual acquaintance through Jihu, so it wasn't strange at all that she knew Lee Jihyeon.
Well. In that case, there shouldn't be much of a problem. I already knew Lee Jihyeon well enough, and Han Yaeseo had been close with me while I lived as Baek Sowol.
I'd been out of school so long I'd completely forgotten. Finals in June, huh.
Fair enough that they couldn't come. They were still the age for studying.
Pointless fretting. At least, unlike last time, I was now aware that my aesthetic sense could look bizarre to other people.
So I decided to collect verified samples from people on the internet.
Last time Soae Unnie had recommended an outfit and it had been easy… Part of me wanted to just wear the same clothes again, but they were already in the washing machine.
I had no choice but to ask for recommendations.
(Photo of various clothes from Baek Sowol's closet spread out in a row.)
Which of these should I wear? Hit me with some combo recs. You can call it crossdressing if you want, I don't give a damn—whether I'm crossdressing or not, just set me up with clothes that look good.
(Photo of a purple hoodie and yellow sweatpants.)
I wore this last time and got absolutely roasted, then got dragged shopping for two hours. So please. My fashion sense is genuinely the worst.
Asking the gallery had been a mistake. Of course this place was never going to give a proper answer.
NewTube? Did I really have to go there? I was still mulling it over when a gallery near the top of the page caught my eye.
Awakened Mage Minor Gallery
The Mage Gallery. At least those people had given me serious advice before.
I'd ask them once and decide from there. NewTube… I had a feeling I'd grab something that only looked vaguely similar and get yelled at for thinking it matched.
I copy-pasted the post as-is.
Under my registered nick, MagicMagic, of course.
Hmm. Better to come clean here. MagicMagic being Baek Sowol was going to come out soon enough anyway.
Come on, that's harsh.
Every time I posted this, I got absolutely destroyed. I thought it looked decent enough, though.
Every reminder that my sense of beauty was dead dealt a solid chunk of mental damage.
Even Unnie had said, If you dress like that again, consider yourself dead!—so apparently Baek Sowol's aesthetic sense had been off too.
Pretty? That one was a girl?
Huh. So that one was a girl too. Quietly a lot of women in here.
Separate from that, though… a meetup? They actually meet each other?
A sudden proposal. An invitation to the meetup.
I dropped in sometimes, but apparently they still had me filed under lurker.
Honestly, showing up wouldn't be that weird… the problem wasn't much of a problem, except…
Tomorrow I already had plans with Han Yaeseo and Lee Jihyeon.
The appointment was at one, the meetup at five, so… if things went well, it might work out. What should I do?
Hmm. That MageLover sat somewhere high up was easy enough to guess.
He said he was a mage himself. If you were a mage, you were obviously someone in a high position.
…What should I do with this? Meeting them once does seem like a good idea…
I was planning to go public soon anyway. And in that state, I could build connections with the mid-to-high ranks of the hunter industry?
That was never a losing trade.
…So this is where it really starts.
Two months now since I'd become Baek Sowol. Compared to the twenty-five years I'd lived as Heo Donghyun, it was a very short span of time—but looking back, an absurd amount had happened in it.
There really had been more than a few twists and turns.
They'll probably say yes… Meeting a mage isn't something that happens every day.
All eleven known mages in South Korea were A-rank or higher. People like that—being able to form a connection was something worth making happen.
Han Yaeseo, Lee Jihyeon—both of them would almost certainly send me. They already knew I was a mage.
Finally… tomorrow…
And so, if permission came through…
For the first time, I would stand face to face with a mage.
I was about to dig even deeper into my preparations when—
Ah. Right.
These assholes just said whatever they wanted and bailed.